JimBrown
Well-Known Member
But they weren't all from the Nicholson 'draughtboard'. You've got a Peter Milne and Ron Holland in that list for starters.
Best Yacht Designer in the GRP Era
- Thread starter LONG_KEELER
- Start date
But they weren't all from the Nicholson 'draughtboard'. You've got a Peter Milne and Ron Holland in that list for starters.
Seajet
...
+1
I wouldn't have guessed how asymmetrical a Centaur was until i undertook to build a cradle for mine when removing the keels / cutting the bottom off of mine not to mention the amount of hardboard & polyester (car-body) filler used in its construction............................yes thats right.........hardboard - the stuff you see in the back of cupboards!
..................They dont build them like that anymore........................
Let's have some proof of that, photographic or otherwise please ?
I have no financial axe to grind here, but I've worked on Centaurs and they are jolly well built; where did you get that BS about asymmetrical build & cardboard from, it sure as hell wasn't standard !
The only cases of asymmetric twin keelers I know of is with boats which were wrecked in the October 1987 Hurricane; a lot of small cowboy grp repair outfits sprang up overnight, and it was not unknown to find keels put back on at interesting angles !
I think this is probably where the confusion comes from.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
+1
I wouldn't have guessed how asymmetrical a Centaur was until i undertook to build a cradle for mine when removing the keels / cutting the bottom off of mine not to mention the amount of hardboard & polyester (car-body) filler used in its construction............................yes thats right.........hardboard - the stuff you see in the back of cupboards!
..................They dont build them like that anymore........................
Agree. I was horrified when my mate's newly acquired Centaur went for its blasting and anti-osmosis treatment and the area between the keels turned into porridge. The whole section and inner floor had to be removed and rebuilt.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
See my response to rogerball above.
Also wish I had taken a photo of an Elizabethan 29 undergoing similar treatment when blasting the hull went straight through the bilge and the keel area exposing the ballast. Boat was written off as the hull moulding was so bad.
You might have seen the insurance thread of the Westerly Griffon that sank because one of the keels broke away.
None of this excuses the sort of thing in your clip, but just a reminder that c**p boats have been built in all ages of boat building.
Poecheng
Well-Known Member
Well said Sir, - and he did the wonderful S26.
If we were all of us obliged to settle on one cruising boat - all others being banished - I wonder if the S34 would be that boat. Not that it is everyone's favourite boat (of course not) but the best compromise that everyone would happily settle for ?
rogerball0
N/A
Yeah i can quite believe that Tranona, when i had mine peeled i had several large (50mm diameter) voids in the hull appear plus a load more on the inside where i've removed large sections of the liner.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Though in that case it was bouncing up and down in an amateur mud berth with the remains of another boat already in it. Still not good, though.
There's nothing wrong with using hardboard as a spacer or former to support GRP while it's being laid up. Paper rope is good for this too, and isn't much of a structural material. If they were using hardboard in a way that put any stresses on it then they were being rather naughty.
Chris_Robb
Well-Known Member
Let's have some proof of that, photographic or otherwise please ?
I have no financial axe to grind here, but I've worked on Centaurs and they are jolly well built; where did you get that BS about asymmetrical build & cardboard from, it sure as hell wasn't standard !
The only cases of asymmetric twin keelers I know of is with boats which were wrecked in the October 1987 Hurricane; a lot of small cowboy grp repair outfits sprang up overnight, and it was not unknown to find keels put back on at interesting angles !
I think this is probably where the confusion comes from.
Having worked at Westerly (the first one) I would also take issue with that. They made immense efforts to get the molds absolutely perfect - the development factory was under my office, and I used to be in there every day. They were dedicated to such perfection that it was almost frustrating! I would also say that when the first Westerly went under that the were well on their way to understanding GRP construction and probably further ahead than (the government subsidized) French boats.
Westerly did not go bust because of yacht building problems - it went bust because it used ALL its working capital to buy ALL +3 more factories at the start of Maggi's recession. Without that utterly mad decision they would easily have weathered the troubled times.
rogerball0
N/A
No for sure it wasn't building them that sent them under but if we look at the golden period of Westerly ('69 - '80) and the sheer numbers they were produced in, it is not unreasonable with humans building them that one or two shall we say didn't come up to 'perfection'
And with all due respect you can build any mould / pattern to perfection but if the operatives pouring the goop and cloth in dont know what they're doing or are havng a 'bad day' etc etc, a sh1te product will result.
Ask anyone who knows me, i can bore for England on how Westerly positively impacted sailing in the '60's and '70's but i also have the ability to think objectively about what i have experienced and seen over the years on mine and from what ive seen my Centaur was far from great.
To balance the above and i've mentioned this before on this forum it was still a new technology when they were building mine (1971) so i'll give em a little leeway but as for this meme Westerly's were the greatest, i and one or two others would take a lot of convincing having undertaken fairly extensive rebuilds.
As someone in the industry once said to me, it wasn't so much they were well built just better built than the competition.
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doug748
Well-Known Member
"You might have seen the insurance thread of the Westerly Griffon that sank because one of the keels broke away. "
Indeed and the current thread about the Bavaria 35 Sport that, we are told, broke up on the first trip out.
Talking about keels, this is what Yachting World published yesterday:
http://www.yachtingworld.com/news/keel-failure-shocking-facts-60006
"None of this excuses the sort of thing in your clip, but just a reminder that c**p boats have been built in all ages of boat building. "
Quite so, I am aware of it. Though I suggest you are the one that so often speaks as if you are not.
Indeed and the current thread about the Bavaria 35 Sport that, we are told, broke up on the first trip out.
Talking about keels, this is what Yachting World published yesterday:
http://www.yachtingworld.com/news/keel-failure-shocking-facts-60006
"None of this excuses the sort of thing in your clip, but just a reminder that c**p boats have been built in all ages of boat building. "
Quite so, I am aware of it. Though I suggest you are the one that so often speaks as if you are not.
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Tranona
Well-Known Member
May well have seemed that way to you, but it does not help all those owners of boats from that period (not just Westerlys) that had their value blighted by osmosis, many of them discovering in the process, like rogerball and the example I quoted, how poor the mouldings were. One could of course argue as many do here that the heavy construction means that such defects do not lead to unsafe boats. However it does illustrate how little was really known about using the material and how poor the production process was compared to today.
Incidentally not sure osmosis has ever been significant on European built boats, but of course they never got into large volume construction until later. No doubt somebody will correct me if I am wrong.
rogerball0
N/A
I can't recommend highly enough Hugo De Plessis' book on fibreglass boats, it highlights so much of what ive found even down to the voids in my hull that had a curious black granular substance in them, otherwise known as dirt, turns out (according to the book) probably operatives with dirty footwear walking around the mould in the process of being laminated.
Chris_Robb
Well-Known Member
My time at Westerly started in about 1977 to when it went bust, at a time when they were changing over to the new Ed Dubois designs. With that came a huge amount of attention to detail to how to build in an unwasteful method. During this time we found a lot of malpractice when the factory was short of something - they would improvise - typical of that was when I found them using coach bolts on the engine mounts!
On all the new boats we tied the specs down very very tight, so production control was very good. We were planning before the start of Maggies recession to phase out production of all the old LG designs and the build process was very inefficient. By buying all the premises we had to keep production going at the same level - in a recession. The Gross Profit on the new boats was so much better it would have been a brain dead decision to make. But events overtook good sense - some banker advising the company advised them to buy the factories - and without any cash flows or anything being done - they bought the lot for cash leaving the company on the Monday morning with no cash - no working capital whatsoever. None of us on the costing and accounting side had any idea it was happening ! I firmly believe that had this mad decision not been made, the original Westerly Construction Ltd would be here to day.
Chris_Robb
Well-Known Member
Beneteau and Jeanneau suffered in the early days far more than Westerly did. I know that during my time there huge effort was put into the moulding quality, with almost constant meeting with the resin an glass suppliers to work out new techniques. There were problems with the consistency of supply which did contribute to pox out brake. There was a seas change in terms of how things were done. I do know that before that people were treating the whole subject as a miracle product that was easy to do and little attention was paid to understanding the process. Things did change significantly with the new models - it was like turning over a new leaf. Yes - Dubois got his layups wrong on the early keel sections especially the Fulmar - spotted by the costing department - but told what do you know about engineering!......
Chris_Robb
Well-Known Member
I read that book from end to end as I was building a Sadler 25 from bare hull and deck. It was a very useful primer.
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
Being a glass fibre laminator was not a job that had any training back in the 1960,there was no idea 0f tradition as in wooden boatbuilding and the laminators in many cases had more idea of the material than the designers.
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Tranona
Well-Known Member
There is clearly something very wrong with the Bavaria but nothing to suggest that it is typical of the model which has been in production for about 7 years without any problems. The key issue in that case is whether the owner is prepared to accept the offer of repair or try and persuade a court that he can rescind the contract. Doubt we will ever know the full story.
As to the YW article, there is nothing new in this and it clearly makes the points that not only is keel loss rare, but it is not easy to identify causes other than generalise that some result from poor design, some from poor build, some from poor use (grounding) and some from poor maintenance or repair. Furthermore the problems are mostly confined to boats that are raced or used in a different manner from privately owned cruising boats.
My position is that quality of design and construction of production boats using GRP is vastly better now than it was in the early days of the material and that it is a myth that older style boats are by definition better built. Hence my observation that there have always been "bad" boats, just that the reasons for them being "bad" has changed.
Chris_Robb
Well-Known Member
For a cruising boat I think it is quite essential that there is very good resilience to grounding. That is probably my only problems with owning some of the modern designs. High aspect ratio keels whilst being much better for sailing must be a nightmare for the designer to build in a certain factor for grounding.
The modern internal bonded structure is also a nightmare for surveyors to check the structural integrity of the hull. Its a wonderful looking construction method .....but.......
Danny_Labrador
Well-Known Member
Dick Zaal
Contest 42s
Contest 42s
Steve Clayton
Well-Known Member
I give you.......
......Tom Howard
......Tom Howard
